His silver lining

10/15/2015 09:01AM
● By J. Chambless

Lou Samba and Evie Cunliffe are co-owners of the Anytime Fitness franchise on West Chester Pike.

By Richard L. GawStaff Writer

On nearly every work desk in America,
there are trinkets, photographs and gizmos that provide a
glimpse into the person who sits near them. They're like windows and
doors and answers. They are invitations to the curious who want to
know more.

Thirty-three-year-old Lou Samba's desk
at Anytime Fitness on the West Chester Pike – unlike the
immaculately pristine conditions of the 5,600-square-foot facility
outside his office – is the happy clutter of a busy person, but he
smiles and accepts it as part of his position
as a co-owner of the nearly three-year-old business. One would have
to look more closely at the contents of his desk in order to unlock a
little bit of its occupant, but there it is – a framed quotation in
script – that rests behind a computer.

“Most obstacles melt away when we
make up our minds to walk boldly through them,” it reads.

Just how Lou Samba met Evie Cunliffe
and, even more crucial to the telling of this story, how their
friendship blossomed into a West Chester business partnership that
will celebrate its third anniversary in late November, is a mash-up
of unlikely connectivity. Yet, in order to understand it, and know
how the desk quote figures into everything, you start on Willow
Street in Norristown.

Lou Samba's beginning in life did not
fall from the sky like a blessing or a gift. Rather, it was earned,
and then protected, by a pyramid of positive influence that began
with his single mother mother, Ashabi, and extended to the
neighborhood families, who decided early on that their kids were not
going to fall through the cracks of drugs, crime and helplessness.

“Even though that element was on my
front doorstep – people being hurt, killed, and always some kind of
police activity – my two siblings and I were all kept away from
that,” Samba said. “We looked out for each other. People make
excuses, like if they're a product of a single-parent home or a
low-income environment, but I've always just tried to make the right
decisions.”

From the time he was a child, Samba's
greatest fear had already been cultivated. He hated disappointing
anyone he cared about. Consequently, he didn't. He did well in
school. He disappeared into sports. He drempt of someday becoming a
professional football player. He wasn't one of those kids who made
excuses, and he wasn't afraid to fail. By the time he was a senior at
Norristown High School, he was a two-way star – fullback and
linebacker – and heavily recruited by some of the top colleges and
universities in the nation. Letters began to pour in, which he stored
in garbage bags.

Ultimately, he chose to attend the
University of Delaware, where he enrolled in 2000, in order to play
for legendary coach Tubby Raymond. Although the school was not the
football powerhouse of, say, Penn State or Notre Dame, Raymond had
brought the Division 1-A prominence, and dozens of his former players
later went onto careers in the National Football League.

Samba loved the University,
particularly game time: the soft grass field. Coach Raymond and his
assistant coaches on the sidelines. The 23,000-seat stadium slowly
filling up. At the end of the 2001 season, Raymond retired, opening
the door to new head coach K.C. Keeler. In 2003, he was a defensive
lineman and a part of a swarming defensive unit known as “The Chain
Gang,” on the Division I-A National Champion Blue Hens.

“At Delaware, there was that sense of
wanting to be better, the idea that we could be great – together –
and the belief that we needed to lift up everyone who was around
us,” Samba said. “It was a grounding foundation to say, 'That's
your brother. You look out for your brother. You will rise to that
top level, together.' “

Several players on that team were
drafted and eventually played in the N.F.L. Samba never did.

The first injury was to his right knee
in his sophomore year. Towards the end of the game, Samba rushed the
quarterback and stripped the ball from him. The quarterback fumbled.
Samba got up, grabbed the ball, and was hit from behind. He had torn
the meniscus in his right knee. His sophomore season was over.

In his junior year – the championship
season – he made a similar play, tackling the opposing quarterback
in the backfield for a loss.

Samba helps train an Anytime Fitness member.

Here he was, a star defensive lineman
on a national championship football team, at a school that was no
stranger to seeing players who would eventually play in the NFL. He
was on his way to likely achieving his lifelong dream. What he did
not want to admit, however, was that he was also in possession of a
body that was in severe pain. “In the process of getting up,
another player fell on me,” Samba said. “I felt a pop in my left
shoulder. It had completely dislodged and quickly locked itself back
into place. I chose to avoid surgery, so I played the remainder of
the season with torn ligaments in my left shoulder. I just couldn't
leave the team then. It was the best year of my life in football.”

After surgery to repair the torn
ligaments in his shoulder, Samba's recovery was long and painful. He
returned to training camp, and re-injured himself. The doctors told
him that they had to cut the ligaments in his shoulder first, in
order to stretch them out. They confronted Samba and told him what
every athlete never wants to hear.

The dream was over. Samba left
football, sat out his senior year, and graduated with a degree in
Health Sciences.

Fast forward this story. Samba put his
degree to work, first at Pro Physical Therapy in Wilmington for
several years, and then as the manager of the Anytime Fitness in
Newark, where Evie Cunliffe first arrived four years ago. She
originally dropped by the facility with no further intention than to
work off a few inches and do a little toning. There, she met Samba,
and noticed that he was doing everything: gym maintenance,
administrative duties, as well as motivating the other members at
seemingly every corner and crevice. Cunliffe took on Samba as her
personal trainer, and slowly, her entire approach to fitness
transformed. What used to be considered the necessary evil of
maintaining health became a passion. She began to compete in
triathlons and bicycle races.

“Lou completely changed my opinion of
myself and my abilities,” Cunliffe said. “I knew I could lose
weight, but he turned me into an athlete. In the process of working
with him, I felt like he had that incredible something. I saw this
hugely motivated, incredible person.”

Having grown up in a family of means,
Cunliffe had always made it a goal in her life to be able to give
someone who did not have the same upbringing she had, an opportunity.
She approached her now former husband and told him about Samba.
“Steve,” she said, “I think this young man is simply amazing.”

Soon after, Cunliffe approached Samba
with a proposition: that she and Steve would raise the necessary
capital in order purchase an Anytime Fitness franchise – and give
Samba the opportunity to eventually earn co-ownership of the
business.

At first, Samba thought Cunliffe was
joking. He was concerned that this was a huge financial
responsibility on behalf of Evie, Steve and other members of their
family, and that they were wresting the future of the business on
what amounted to what he was able to instill in others. It would be
more than enough, Cunliffe told him. Samba eventually agreed, and a
site was found in West Chester.

“I had every benefit in life, and
Lou did not, but he is such an amazing man, and he deserves an
opportunity to have that same initiative and opportunity that I had,”
Cunliffe said. “It's our privilege to see Lou doing so well. He has
a genuine love of life and people, and he connects with people on a
very real level, and they feel his enthusiasm. For him to be in the
same room, is for you to feel better. He inspires other people.”

For up to12 hours a day, nearly every
day, Samba arrives and departs Anytime Fitness with all of the
positive energy that Cunliffe and her family believed would be the
driving force behind their enterprise. He answers e-mails, orders
supplies, coordinates trainer's schedules, and buoyantly floats from
station to station, encouraging members – the stepping stone for
what Samba's new dream has become.

He wants to own several more Anytime
Fitness locations. He loves the model of the franchise – to provide
fitness opportunities for busy people in a 24-7 world.

“I have come to believe that there is
a silver lining in every situation we have in our lives,” he said.
“It may be the worst experience you go through in your entire life,
and you may be sad and you may grieve, but at some point there is a
silver lining. You have to open your eyes, your mind and your heart
and your perceptions. You're much better off in life if you can find
a way to do that.”